[Martinjlm]

Originally Posted by olrocker

Firebird/TA always looked much more aggressive and meaner than Camaro. Grand Prix W-Bodies looked far more performance oriented than any other W-Body cousin. The G8 looked more 3-Series-esque than any other sedan GM sold in America.

Cool that you noticed that. That’s exactly what they were aiming for.

Originally Posted by olrocker

My point is Pontiac did a great job differentiating their style enough to make them stand out and be unique. There was enough differentiation in the original GTO after 1964 when it became its own model that even my Mom could tell the difference between a GTO and a Tempest by a simple quick glance.

GM did the 04-06 GTO wrong by simply making a “Pontiac” front clip on the Monaro. More aggressive and attention-grabbing design would have increased sales (as well as better advertising and promotion).

A lot going on around this one. The fact that there ever was a Zeta platform GTO or G8 comes back to Bob Lutz and Tom Stephens. Tom was the head of Powertrain and he and Bob were buddies. They were trying to fill the gap created by Camaro end of production. They swung a deal with Holden (GM’s Australian unit) to import the Monaro as the GTO. Several issues though. Since the plan was to import the car completely assembled, there was a cap on the number of cars that could be imported. I don’t remember what it was but I think it was about 30,000 cars. Not enough to justify a program, but they got it done anyway. Catch was, there would be no engineering beyond what was required to meet crash test, fuel economy standards, and emissions regulations. Therefore, no work on design beyond Pontiac fascia. It did lead to more conversation around using Zeta platform for Camaro and the eventual build of a module in Oshawa to produce Camaro 5. Ironically, the way they got that through the bureaucracy was not too different than the way DeLorean got the first GTO through by making it a variant of the Tempest grandmother’s car.

Originally Posted by olrocker

Makes cars that people want because they grab people’s attention. Cars that make people WANT to run out to their nearest dealer to look at a new car any time. Not just when they need a new car. Not because they have 11 cup holders and a $299/mo lease special.

People are holding on to cars longer now be because they’re more reliable and last longer than they ever have.

Want to increase sales again? It’s not that hard: make cars people want!